Thread: home air compressor

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I am looking into getting me an air compressor for home to be able to shoot primer and blow off the car to prep for primer so i can start working one panel at a time on my car. I will NOT need the compressor to use a da or a grinder. What compressor, spray gun and accessories (filters, gauges etc) should i buy with this. THIS IS ONLY NEEDED FOR PRIMER/PAINT. REMEMBER i will only be working one panel at a time so i do not think i will need a big tank.What suggestions do you guys have for me to be able to shoot good primer from home

I have a small CH 5.5hp,26 gal. that I primer with and I could actually primer an entire vehicle if I wanted to wait for it to catch up after every 2 panels or so.Primering 1 panel at a time,,,a 2 1/2 hp would get by but what you want to watch is the cfm required by the gun.'Usually',the better the gun the higher the cfm required.But if you ask around you'll find that even some of the pro's will use cheapie guns($25) to primer with since you'll be blocking it anyway.My primer gun is a home depot Husky mod.hds790/rs0804 HVLP cost around $70 and I think it works great.If you go with a compressor as small as,say 2hp or so,pick a gun that won't need alot of cfm in case you decide to spray more than one panel it won't burn out/break down fast.One more note,there are more 'junk' air compressors on the market than there is any other product available to the American public,buy a brand name.

Well....this is a question that has so many variables it is difficult to answer and I don't feel I am qualified to answer. However I have painted a few cars at home-including the vette in my avatar. But since you asked I will tell you what I think. I would go with an HVLP system. There are numerous ways to accomodate that, but the best way (again in my feeble opinion) would be to use a turbine system like Eastwood sells. http://www.eastwoodco.com/shopping/p...&keyword=34056
The advantage to this system is there is no way for oil to shoot into or under your primer job. If you do get oil under your primer or color your paint can have bubbles later as the oil gets hot and tries to outgas.

If you do decide to use a conventional compressor and gun I would still buy a pretty good one not a Sears or hardware store variety. I would still buy a good Binks, Devilbus or Sharpe HVLP gravity gun vs a siphon type.
http://www.autorefinishdevilbiss.com/main.php?p=g&id=7

But, since you aren't going to listen to me anyway. Get yourself one of those small standup compressors from Home Depot. I think they are an oiless compressor on a 25 gal tank. They are an upright design and have wheels so you can move it around. Be sure to buy a hose just for painting! Also get a good regulator with a water and oil trap. That with a good primer gun and you should be good to go.

For years I got by with a 2 hp Sears 20 gallon tank compressor. Painted a couple of cars with it and a couple of boats. Then I moved up to a 60 gallon tank/5 HP upright. It died after a few years of very hard work, so now we are operating off of my Sons 60 gallon/ 6 hp upright, and that is about to crap out too, from being used day in and day out for about 4 years.

I have learned a couple of things about compressors along the way. If you are truly just going to do occasional priming, blowing off, etc., the small units that have a 20 gallon tank/ 1.5 to 2 hp are fine. But if you are going to DA, run other high consumption tools, and (especially) sandblast, you need a big unit. And a twin cylinder at that. My 5 hp would run out of air when I blasted, and I would have to stop every couple of minutes to let it catch up, even running a DA kept it running constantly.

Since we are getting more serious about our projects, I am going to take the two tanks we have (both 60 gallons, and hook them together into one big tank, and buy a twin cylinder compressor from Eaton Compressor in Ohio, and hook up a very good 5 hp motor to it. This should give me all the air we need to do anything.

The reason I mention Eaton is that I bought one of their units for our marina, and it really rocks. We could never run two DA's with our old unit, but the one we got from Eaton does that and more. Shipping and all was like $ 400.00, but that is only for the bare compressor. I figure another $ 200.00 for a good motor, and we will fab up some mounts to hook it all together.

It is really frustrating to have too small of a compressor, but if you are doing the minor stuff you outline, Harbor Freight, Home Depot, Sears, etc all have pretty reasonable units for that.

Don

thanks for all the info so far. Does anyone have any suggestions of make/model of a small compressor that have been used and have expierienced them before. I plan to work one panel at a time.

what do you guys think of ebay item number 4621511762
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/3-Sta...ayphotohosting

I'll chime in a little, make shure u get a compressor with SCFM ratings, not just CFM or ACFM, there garbage numbers, basicly ACFM is accumulated CFM meaning the pump won't do that cfm, but with the tank, you will see that CFM for a few seconds, maby a minuite or so, just saying CFM, leaves u as the buyer in question as to weather it is SCFM or ACFM.